Activist Files New Ethics Charges Against Green

A new ethics complaint has been filed against Louisville Metro Councilwoman Judy Green that alleges she broke council rules by instructing a non-profit group to reroute money to other agencies.

Activist Ed Springston formally entered the charges with the Ethics Commission on Friday, saying the embattled city lawmaker should be removed from office.

“If you want to save the integrity of the council at all, you’ve got to remove Judy Green. She is everything that is wrong with elections today,” he says. “This is taxpayer money. If we want any integrity of the process whatsoever they have to remove Judy Green if she doesn’t resign.”

Two years ago, Green directed officers with the non-profit group, 100 Black Men, to ask for a $7,500 grant for a mentoring program. Green then directed the organization to reroute a third of that money to other organizations at her discretion even though they were not listed on the application, including the purchase of tickets for a Kentucky Derby fundraiser that she attended.

Kent Wicker, Green’s attorney, was unavailable for comment, but earlier this month he told the Courier-Journal that the additional funds in question went to “worthy organizations for appropriate, charitable purposes.”

The new charges come a week before the commission is set to hold a hearing on a complaint filed by Ray Barker Sr., a former political opponent who ran against Green last year. Barker accuses Green of using a city-funded summer jobs program—dubbed the “Green Clean Team”—to benefit members of her family.

The program was the subject of an internal audit and a police investigation, which found that over $28,000 was unaccounted for and that Green ran the program with 12 of her relatives or foster children receiving 10 percent of the $35,000 in city money allocated for the program.